Departure

Its is with heavy heart that I've decided to part ways with my retribution. If I were to get to a club/event then my first choice would be hordes. As much as I live the models and the time spent painting my ret, it is a waste having them simply sitting in their foam case.

If there is any interest at all please contact me here or message loftybloke on the privateer forums.

Thanks
Lofty

Don't Stop Me Now

Things are still going really well, there is a lot of momentum to this project!

I've come up with a couple of paint schemes, but I'm having trouble picking one to go with (will be painting up a couple of spare guardians to see what they look like hopefully), any preferences please dear readers? I think the black helmet is in the lead at the mo.

KILLED AND LOST BY PHOTOBUCKET :(

To cover off from last time, I have readied ten Dire Avengers for painting (going to hopefully have a massive weekend of airbrushing base coats on EVERYTHING) sourced a High Elf Dragon as a wave serpent, and 8 Cold Ones for jetbikes.

The plan at the moment is to make Shining Spears - Dragon Knights with four cold ones/Dire Avengers and have two units of three jetbike guardians on the cold ones as well. I also have plans for a Farseer/Warlock council on 'jetbikes' at some stage, though cold ones are proving pretty tough to source so this won't be anytime soon. Both the Dragon Knights and outriders (Let's call the guardians) have been heavily inspired by other people's conversion work, as well as the Exodite fluff I've been reading in various places online. I plan on giving them a good amount of baggage on the back of the saddle, with bedroll, knife, personal effects etc.

I have been pondering ways in which to make the more traditional Craftworld elements of my current project fit more with the Exodite theme, and in this vain I have purchased some Instant mold. The plan is to take a mold from the spine/head area of one of the cold one mounts and have this scaly pattern greenstuffed onto the smooth head areas of the wraith units. If I can pull it off, i think it will look pretty good.

I don't get as much time to assemble & paint as i would like, as our kittens are still pretty into everything they can see, so it's a very stop/start process. Slowly but surely I'm getting to where I want to be though.
I'm at a friends house on Thursday to see him play against a second friend so I can start learning the new edition of 4ok, which I'm looking forward to as it will allow me to better plan my collection/armny lists.

Further into the project, I will be making my own Howling Banshees (also intended to double as Harlequins somehow) Warpspiders, and a small corsair DE force to go with everything else, as well as Lizardmen monstrous creatures as grav tanks.
I'm also wanting to include a Carnosaur somehow eventually (Wraithknight stand in??) a Wraithknight (see previous) and I'm not sure how to represent further wave serpents, as the High Elf Dragon wasn't easy to come by, albeit being cheaper than a Wave Serpent kit...

This is a project which has run ahead of me, and I'm finding it quite hard to stay on top of all the things I keep thinking of to include in the force etc. It's very refreshing to have such a clean slate to work with, there is a lot to be said for the world of GW plastic kits and the options they leave a modeler.

I'll hopefully have something to show soon, but I can't promise anything with Xmas on it's way and being pretty busy. I will however show progress when it's made, especially with the more esoteric stuff like the dragon et al.

Thanks for stopping by!
Lofty

Game Changer

Firstly, this post is not marked for IABN so anyone who has arrived here expecting Privateer Press related blogging, this post is not for you :)

I'm sure that I've mentioned before that a couple of my friends still play GW games, both fantasy and 40k. Despite teaching one of my friends Warmachine, and him buying heavily into Cryx, 40k still seems to be the game of choice.

That being said, we have had a recent phase of financial hardship, but this has now cleared up in the form of my wife getting a new job.  However, this has led me to be excessively frugal on the hobby front, and I have made some absolute steals on ebay/facebook trading page to the tune of (for £80);

Eldar Avatar
20 Dire Avengers (new on frame)
10 Guardians (new on frame)
6 Fire Dragons (sealed in box)
11 Striking scorpions inc 2 Exarchs
1 Wave Serpent
5 Wraithguard (sealed in box)
1 Wraithlord (sealed in box)
1 Spiritseer (sealed in box)
New Eldar Codex

Needless to say pretty pleased with myself.  Plans currently include conversions/counts as for Warp spider & Howling banshee Aspect Warriors, as well as a whole heap of exodites - cold ones as jetbikes/shining spear, Lizardmen beasts as grav tanks.

This all pretty much stems from
a) Cash - it's going to be a whole lot cheaper to make my own guys than it is to pay full GW prices
b) Finecrapst - I refuse to pay money for 'fine'cast anything, so plastic is king :)

The only progress i've made so far is getting the fire dragons mounted on cork bases (originally planned for a city ruins theme, but will now be modifiying this to fit an exodite world), and re-assembling the ebayed Avatar and pinning to a large cork base.

I made a little progress on the hobby tidying i proposed in an earlier post, and have sorted out my hobby drawer in order to facilitate better access to bits and bobs.  The wife is out this Sunday for most of the day doing baking things, so i;m hop[ing to be able to make a real dent in the rest of what I want to do the hobby area in order to make things as easy as possible to get done.  I will also be planning out a paintinging docket, so i can make best use of airbrush basecoating without it being interrupted/stopping and starting too much. The idea is to have an hour or so each time im free to base coat a whole batch of guys which can then be painted during the week, which will speed things up as well as making the whole process easier :)

Long post today, but it should hopefully make up for my ridiculous lack of capacity recently.

I'm hoping to be able to update as often as i have anything to show/discuss so stay tuned,a nd thanks for your patience.

Thanks for stopping by
Lofty

Better,Faster, Stronger

It's been a while again since my last post. For which i can only apologise. It's been a busy summer since my last post in June. 
Let's review:
Birthday madness through July. There are literally 5 different birthdays Including my own
Cats. We adopted three kittens mid august and we have spent a lot of time with them getting them settled into their new home etc. This had also meant that my hobby gear has been locked away for their safety and my sanity.
At the moment though we are on a train back from a long weekend in London which means I have missed this year's Breast Cancer Brawl

On the up though, im planning to finally sort out my hobby area,which is something I've neglected for one reason or another since we moved if I'm honest.  The aim is to be able to stop WIP items and relevant paints/parts/tools in their own tin/box to allow me to store/retrieve them with minimal fuss and remain productive whilst fending off curious kittens.
I've got lots I want to do and start/finish/re-do at the moment all of which is currently frantic scribblings in a notebook.but I will hopefully be able to shed a little light soon enough on what's coming up:)

So for now that's pretty much it, but I hope to be able to update fairly soon with more interesting content
Thanks for stopping by
Lofty

All Quiet on the Western Front

Just wanted to check in and ensure you all that I am still around and still hobbying.

I've had a couple of bouts of illness recently coupled with some really busy weeks, so I've barely been at my desk since the last post.
During that time though, I have eVyros ready to prime and undercoat, my witch doctor conversion almost finished (including a base that I really like), and Rask & various minions all ready to get basecoated.
All I need is time to spend getting everything set up and long enough to get them all sprayed ready to be worked on.

I'm also planning a magnetising project with some of the new Games Workshop Eldar models. These are the first models I ever purchased over 17 years ago, and the re-released stuff has really piqued my interest, and I look forward to a bit of a palette cleanse with this project. After all, how different are the miniatures from GW/PP?

I'm also planning on picking up some new airbrush paints, and I plan eventually to have base/mid/highlight colours for commonly used colours, browns/reds/greens/bone etc. This will be for any work that comes in (not sure how likely) but also to increase speed and efficiency for my own models, as I can reduce the amount of brush time spent with a model, in order to be able to spend more time on details, instead of repeated coats of base colours etc. I'm hoping this will give me more time to practice new tachniques that I've recently started, as well as learning new.

It's also my birthday coming up, and me and a friend who has recently started Cryx have agreed to exchange PP minis as gifts to the value of £30, as neither our significant others, or any of our other friends would gift us with hobby gear! We exchanged lists of 'wants & needs' and I have purchased a Merc heavy 'jack, Broadsides Bart, and Dougal Macnaile. My list was a real mix of Skorne, and the few remaining Ret' miniatures that I am after, so we will see what comes of that.

Lastly, I elected not to get into the new Warmachine faction, but I do intend to buy the book once the PP digital app is released. I would rather concentrate on my Retribution collection, and get back onto my Skorne relatively soon.

Next weekend is a trip to London, and the weekend after is a family birthday, so it might not actually be until my birthday that I get time to do anything much, more's the pity. In the meantime though I'm going to be planning out my next few batches of purchases, in terms of projects & hobby essentials.

Thanks for stopping by
Lofty

Commitments

As I'm writing this when I said I would be at the colossals release event, it may not be surprising to learn that I'm not actually there.
"Why?" I hear you cry. "Why after busting a gut to get ready and rush a paintjob on Hyperion are you now not in attendance Lofty?" Work. Plain and simple, I'm not going to go into it because frankly I'm not in the mood, but I've had to work both days this weekend.

I'm going to take this chance to write the post I had planned to further dissect my painting process for Hyperion.

The first and most obvious thing is that I did absolutely no work to the model after I had bought it. I suppose there are a few reasons for this:
- A lack of impetus due to lack of games, which was solved by the deadline of an event to paint to, despite this being far less notice than I would expect from an organised event (different pressganger).
- Airbrush woes, which I've mentioned before meaning that i needed some new kit before I could get started.

The base was an experiment in how I usually make water effects, and quite honestly I think it looks spectacular. I hate to blow my own trumpet but I'm very pleased with the way it looks with snow + model. A success

I originally intended to make the 'jack weathered and battle damaged, but I far prefer the clean look I managed to achieve so I don't feel like I've chickened out of trying this technique.

The line highlighting looks really good I think. After the pre-shading I tried didn't work, I think the alternative of line highlights on the panel edges, and strategically placed shading look really well together. Part of this is that the airbrush gives such a smooth basecoat as well.
I'm disappointed that the airbrushing didn't really work out (I would have liked to try it for some OSL on the power nodes etc as well) but I'm please that I've 'learned' a new technique as it's something I will be trying to carry forward. The Destors and eVyros have large armoured areas on the horses, and I think this will suit them well.

All in all, I'm really pleased with how the big man turned out, despite everything that has happened, I'm proud to have Hyperion standing on the speaker next to my monitor.

Thanks for stopping by
Lofty

With Time to Spare

Here he is. No explanation necessary ;)
I'll add a bit more in depth post about the big man next week at some point, after the tourney write up.

Thanks for stopping by

Lofty